


Ice Bar

by GreenFish



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:15:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3072626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenFish/pseuds/GreenFish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Team Canton, instead of skating at an ice rink, all worked at an ice bar, instead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Bar

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted for the [Figure Skating Secret Santa](http://figureskatingsecretsanta.tumblr.com/) challenge on tumblr for canadianvirtues. WIP.

Scott Moir surveyed the schedule taped up to the door of Marina’s office.  Marina Zoueva was the owner and general manager of  _Arctic Edge,_  “Detroit’s Premier & Unique Nightclub Destination!” as the ad in  _Detroit Nightlife_  so splashily advertised. 

It was  _something_  all right, he thought, dryly. 

Scott sensed her before he even heard her.  It was this weird connection they had between them; where he just knew she was there without her having to even tell him. 

“Who’s working first ice bar shift tonight?” Tessa asked, scanning the sheet. 

Tessa Virtue:  his fellow bartender, and (probably) future wife, if he had anything to say about it. 

It was strange, what he and Tessa had.  Scott wasn’t the kind of guy who settled down with anyone, not really.  He had been dating girls since he was fourteen, and while he’d had girlfriends, he had never seen himself as the marrying type.  Until he’d met Tessa. 

Unfortunately, Tessa had a boyfriend, who worked outside the bar, but it hadn’t stopped him from falling for her.  There was something about her that made him nuts; made him want to drop everything in his life and start over with her. 

But, of course, Tessa wasn’t his.  Not yet, anyway.  But that would change if he had his way.  And Scott Moir was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

“You and me, kiddo.  Tanith is cocktailing with us.”

“Ugh,  _Tanith_ , really?” she asked, making a face.

Tessa and Tanith Belbin had a ‘history,’ to put it politely.  Tanith had been working at Arctic Edge since its inception six years ago.  Tessa and Scott had both started working at the bar around the same time – around two years ago.  A year ago, Tessa had engaged in a short affair with Fedor Andreev, Tanith’s ex-boyfriend (and Marina’s son, as it happened).  While their relationship had been short-lived, Tanith still hadn’t lived down the perceived slight against her ego.

Tessa admitted later to Scott that she was pretty sure Tanith still had a thing for Fedor, and  _that_  was why she was still angry at Tessa for dating him, even though they had been broken up for almost six months now, with Tessa in a completely different relationship.

Tessa was five years younger than Tanith, so Scott assumed that Tanith had probably just been irritated at the sight of a younger, equally pretty girl hook up with her ex.  This was how it went in this business. 

Scott had been working in restaurants and bars practically his entire life; his parents owned a family restaurant in his hometown of Ilderton, Ontario.  He’d come to Detroit by way of school – he was attending college full time at Eastern Michigan University and working at the bar at night.  He knew how things operated in this business, and how petty the relationships could be.  It was part of the reason he hadn’t made his move on Tessa yet. 

The guy Tessa was now dating actually worked at another bar in Windsor, just over the Canadian border. 

Tessa was originally from Canada as well.  As it happened, she was also attending college at nearby Wayne State University in Detroit full time, and working at the bar at nights.   On her days off, she usually drove back over to Windsor to hang out with her boyfriend – or at least, Scott  _assumed_  that’s what she was doing.  They were practically attached at the hip during work hours, but as soon as they got off work, they barely talked to each other, save for the occasional text here or there.  If he was being honest, he couldn’t quite figure Tessa out. 

What  _was_  she really, to him?

“That’s all right,” Scott grinned, hoping to break the frown from Tessa’s face.  “You’ll be with me all night, so you know it’ll be good times.”  He winked at her.  “Team Canada?”

“Team Canada!” she smiled back in response, bumping fists with him.

He made a fake-exploding noise as they broke apart. 

That was their inside joke – being the only two Canadian citizens that worked in the bar, they joked that they needed to “stick together for their country’s sake.”  To be fair, Tanith had been born in Canada, too, but was now a naturalized U.S. citizen, so Scott liked to claim she didn’t count anymore, since she’d “defected to the enemy side.” 

Still:  the bar staff was a virtual cornucopia of ex-pats:  Marina and her boyfriend, Igor, the other head manager, were originally from Russia, as was her son, Fedor, who worked in the prep kitchen.  There was Massimo, the assistant manager, who was from Italy, and Javier, one of the bar-backs, who was from Spain.  Sometimes, Scott joked, it was a regular foreign embassy around there.

“Amuuuuurica!  Fuck yeah!” a voice came up behind them, singing off-key.  Scott felt a hand clap on his shoulder as a distinctive chuckle took over.

“Well!  If it isn’t White Bread!” Scott laughed in response as his fellow bartender and buddy Charlie White peered over the schedule.

“Who am I stuck with tonight?  Am I in the chiller?”

“Not ‘til second shift.  Tessa and I have ice bar first shift.  Then you and Ben.”

“Who’s on the floor tonight?” Charlie asked, his eyes scanning the schedule.

“Maia, Meryl, and Brooke, it looks like,” Tessa said.  “Sorry, Char, we get Tanith for  _our_  shift, and then she’s following us.  It looks like you have Meryl as your cocktail tonight in the chiller tonight.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,  _‘sorry’_  —?” Charlie asked, making a face. 

“Oh, get  _off_  it, eh?” Scott said, slugging Charlie’s arm.  “We  _know_  you have a huge boner for Tanith.  You practically need a bib every time she’s around.  Especially when she’s working the main floor!”

“W-what?” Charlie protested.  “I… do  _not_  stare at Tanith.”

“You totally stare at Tanith!” a tiny voice giggled, coming up behind Charlie.  He practically jumped straight up in the air, and immediately turned around to glare at his co-worker, Meryl Davis. 

“What the  _hell_ , Mer?” he said, glaring at her.  “You practically gave me a heart attack.”

“Why?  Did you think I was  _Tannnnith?_ ” she asked, with a suggestive grin, waggling her eyebrows at him.

“I hate you all,” Charlie said with a huff, as he pretended to stomp off.  They all knew he wasn’t  _really_ annoyed with them, though. 

Charlie was the kind of guy who couldn’t hold a grudge to save his life, let alone actually be annoyed with anyone.  He also wasn’t the kind of guy you’d immediately assume worked in a bar, either.  In his off-hours, he was a class-A nerd, as Scott would have put it.  Charlie was going to school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, along with Meryl.

Meryl and Charlie had grown up nearby each other, just outside Detroit, but had only really been acquaintances up until college, when they’d became close friends during their Freshman year, after living on the same residence hall floor.  Meryl had convinced Charlie to apply for a position at Arctic Edge almost three years ago, and they’d been hired together.  Charlie had quickly picked up a knack for flair bartending, which Scott  _also_  happened to have a talent for.  They used to start up competitions over who could do better tricks.  Inevitably, their competitions had usually ended with several broken bottles and a huge mess, so these days, they weren’t usually assigned the same shifts.  Instead, they hung out mostly during off-hours, playing Madden Football and NHL 2K9 on the PlayStation, or arguing about the Red Wings and Maple Leafs, as they were both die-hard hockey fans.

Unlike Scott and Tessa, Meryl and Charlie seemed firmly grounded in the ‘friends’ category, though Scott wasn’t sure if it was because they were both uber-nerds who had no  _idea_  how to hook up, or if they really just didn’t have any interest in one another, romantically.  They always seemed to be together, though, whenever Scott saw them, so he wasn’t really sure  _what_  their deal was.  Other than the fact that Charlie had a massive boner for Tanith, who may or may not have found Charlie cute, but _loved_  messing with him, nonetheless. 

Scott sighed loudly as they headed into the break room to lock up their belongings.  “Guess it’s time to suit up, Tess.”

He hated taking the first shift in the ice bar, because it meant they had to do all prep work, which was the  _worst_.  It was literally freezing in there; the Ice Bar was essentially a 20 X 20 walk-in cooler that had been converted to a bar where everything was made out of ice – the bar, the stools, even the glasses.  No one – especially the people that worked there - wanted to be in there any longer than they  _had_  to be.  The ice bar shifts were broken up into three hour blocks, with a five minute break every hour.   It was ridiculous, he thought, that they would only let people sit in the ice bar for an hour at a time, but the employees had to be in there for  _four_  hours, if you included set-up time at the beginning, or break-down if you were in the closing shift. 

In the beginning, he always layered up – shirt, sweater, gloves, hat, hand warmers, feet warmers, but by the time he was done prepping, he was usually down to his sweater and maybe a pair of gloves.  People always asked him how he could work in only a sweater, but when you were moving and sweating so much, you didn’t  _want_  to be wearing all those layers.  Tessa, on the other hand, would always keep her coat, hat, gloves and scarf on.  Just like Meryl, she claimed she was never warm enough.  He would have guessed it was a girl thing, but then there was Tanith, who somehow still managed to show off cleavage even when she was on an ice bar shift.  No wonder that dork Charlie couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.

If he hadn’t been so entranced with Tessa, he probably would have given Tanith an eye as well.  But then again, he didn’t need that level of crazy, either.  He had his hands full enough with Tessa. 

“So what do we need today?” Tessa asked, as she pulled out a clipboard with yesterday’s inventory list. 

“Let’s find out, darlin’.”

===

“Four Finns and an Absolut!” Tessa called out, as Scott grabbed the respective bottles of vodka from their respective cubby holes behind him.  Inside the box, everything was ice, from the bar, to the shelves, right down to the bar stools people sat on.  They did have a rubber mat behind the bar to keep them from slipping, but the frost-covered bottles were slippery as hell.  Luckily, Scott was good with his hands.

He flipped the two bottles in his hands as he made his way over to the end of the bar, where Tessa had a line of shot glasses, formed out of ice (of course), waiting for him.  He nuzzled up behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder, as he handed the bottles to her with grin.  She glanced up at him as she gingerly set the bottle of Absolut down and poured out the four shots of Finlandia.  She poured the fifth shot of Absolut as Scott started singing at her, loud enough for the amused patrons in front of them to hear,

“Baby, it’s cold inside…”

Tessa started to wiggle out of his grasp, responding, in tune, “I really can’t stay…”

Scott immediately sidled up next to her.  “But baby, it’s cold inside,” he answered, also in tune. 

It was a routine they did almost every time they worked together, and it usually guaranteed a minimum extra $5-10 on their tips for that check.  People ate up their whole flirty routine, and Scott was more than happy to play the game. 

“These people need help to _day_ ,” she continued.

“Baby it’s cold inside…” Scott sang, following her down the bar as she slid the bottles back into their cubbies.

“All right,” she murmured, twirling out of his grasp, but he grabbed her hand at the last second, swinging her back to him, and dipping her down.  The bar exploded into applause. 

“Thank you, thank you!” Scott said, holding her hand up in the air.  “We’ll be here all week.”

===

And that was the way that their nights usually went, a lot of flirting, dancing, songs and fun.  When they switched out into the main bar area, it was a little less cramped behind the bar, but the temperature difference forced them to practically strip down to almost nothing.  Scott’s typical uniform for working in the main bar was a tight black t-shirt, jeans, and his work boots.  Tessa’s was the same, except that her t-shirt was torn down the center into a deep “v” and the bottom of the shirt barely grazed her navel, always putting her deliciously smooth, milky skin on display.  One of these days, he was going to lose it, he thought. 

His hand swiped across her side as he passed by her, delivering a beer to the service station where Tanith was waiting with a bored expression.  “Dude, let it go, already,” she said as he dropped the beer on the bar.

“Excuse me?” Scott said, leaning over on one elbow.  A lot of people put up with Tanith’s ‘queen of the bar’ act, but he was not one of them. 

“Tessa, I mean – she’s not into you.  She just lets you do that shit for tips.  You  _know_  that, right?”

“I’m not an idiot, blondie,” he scowled.  Tanith hated when he called her that, so naturally, he called her that all the time. 

She scowled right back at him.  “Then why do you keep giving her the moony eyes, or look like you’re gonna come all over her?  It’s disgusting.”

“I dunno, why do  _you_  keep leading on White Bread, and making him think he has a chance with your wrinkly ass?”

“Fuck you, I look fantastic for my age, thank you very much.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Blondie,” he said, turning and almost running directly into the bar back, Javi. 

“Whoa, buddy, slow it down, you’re gonna faceplant,” Javi said, almost giggling.  Javier was originally from Spain, and he loved employing all the English slang he’d learned since coming to the country as an exchange student last year.  He’d since decided to stay and attend school in the U.S. 

Scott got along all right with him, but Javi also harbored a huge crush on Tessa, which honestly annoyed Scott more than it should have, considering that neither of them had a real shot with her.  Not while she was dating someone else, anyway.

Scott kicked Javi lightly as he stood up, carrying a bus tub full of dishes.  “Don’t be in everyone’s way, then,” Scott joked, as Javi bumped him with his hip. 

“Can’t help that I’m such a  _presence_ ,” he grinned, and hoisting the tub onto his shoulder, headed out of the bar. 

Scott shook his head, a slight frown lingering until he felt a pair of cold hands slide up inside his shirt.  “Hey!” he protested.  He turned to see Tessa behind him with her hands still up his shirt, pressed against his bare skin. 

“Sorry,” she said in the most  _not_ -apologetic voice he had ever heard.   “My hands are cold.”

Scott twisted his arm around, pulling her closer to him, and forcing her to snake her arms around his stomach.  As her fingers rubbed against the light smattering of hair there, he felt a stirring below.  _Fuck_ , he thought.

It was times like this when he was grateful to have the bar covering the lower half of his body to the public’s view. 

“How long do you plan to stand like this?” he asked, chuckling slightly.  Scott heard his voice crack as he asked the question, and silently cursed himself again.

“Just enough to warm up my hands a little,” she purred against his side. 

Damn it, she had to know  _exactly_  what she was doing, he thought, feeling annoyed.  Not that he didn’t _enjoy_  it; it was just …

 _Fuck_.

“Well, you know,” he said, laughing nervously, “some people have actual  _work_  to do – like this fine patron over here.”  He gestured to a guy with an overgrown beard who had stepped up to the bar. 

“I’ll just come with you, then,” she giggled, shuffling along with Scott until they reached the guy.

“Can I –“ Scott cleared his throat, “-  _We_  help you?” 

“Pisco sour,” the guy said, pulling a wallet from a chain attached to his pants. 

 _Holy shit,_  Scott thought.  Who actually used a wallet on a chain anymore?  People around here were so weird sometimes.

“I got this,” Tessa said, sliding her hands out of Scott’s shirt.  “Looks like Brooke’s waiting for you.”

===

Thursday of that week started out like just about any other Thursday.  He arrived in the bar at the same time that Tessa did.  How they managed to do that almost every single time they worked together, he had no idea.  It was like they were on the same wavelength. 

Sure enough, Charlie and his shadow arrived shortly thereafter, Meryl grumbling about Charlie almost making them late again.  Scott knew if it was Meryl’s choice, they would be there a half-hour early every time they worked, but Charlie was always just on time, and since they rode together, so was she.

 _What a couple of weirdos_ , Scott thought, as Meryl continued to whine about Charlie being late.  Scott was about to tell them to just go ‘get a room’ already, when he glanced over at Tessa, who hadn’t even said hello to anyone.  Being quiet was uncharacteristic for her.  She was usually the first one to make a smart-ass comment, next to Scott. 

Scott stopped short when he noticed that Tessa’s eyes looked puffy.  She’d put on make-up, but the puffiness was still visible; especially at close proximity.  He waited until Meryl and Charlie went to set up for their shift in the cooler, and came up next to her, sliding his arm around her shoulder. 

“Everything all right, kiddo?” he asked softly. 

It was a joke between them – the “kiddo” nickname – as she was only a year younger than Scott.  He liked to pretend she was a lot younger, especially since Tessa was the second-youngest person that worked there, let alone as a bartender, a position that was mostly given to senior employees.  She was only the second girl that Marina had ever allowed to work behind the bar.  Meryl worked with Charlie if Ben was off that day, but Meryl preferred to cocktail, whereas Tessa preferred to bartend.  Tessa had told Scott it kept people from touching her all the time, like they had when she’d been a cocktail waitress.  (She didn’t comment about the fact that Scott was touching her all the time, however.  Somehow that must have been different to her, he thought.)

She let out a shaky breath, still staring at the schedule, but not really looking at it.  “Brian and I … broke up last night.”

“What?” Scott asked, shocked.  “You guys have been together  _forever_.”

At least, it seemed like forever to Scott.  They’d been dating as long as Scott had known her, but he wasn’t sure exactly how long.

“We’d … been having trouble for a while, I guess,” Tessa said with a sigh.  Scott followed her into the back room where they locked up their bags, and Tessa pulled off the sweatshirt she was wearing over her work shirt.  He tried not to stare at the way her t-shirt rode up as the sweatshirt slid over her head.

“Really?” he asked, to distract himself.  He remembered he hadn’t heard Tessa talking to Brian as much lately; and now that he was thinking about it, she’d actually been hanging out with him and Charlie and Meryl at his place – which she would never do before.  Something definitely had been up.  Why hadn’t he seen it sooner?

“Yeah, it was – it  _needed_  to happen.  We weren’t made to end up together, I guess.”

“Did he break up with you, or —?” Scott asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

“He brought it up – but, um, it was mostly mutual.”

“Mostly,” Scott said, his eyes dark as he stared at her. 

She looked uncomfortable at his gaze, and turned away from him.  “Yes,” she said, slamming her locker shut.  “C’mon, let’s get out there.  Marina will kill us if we’re not prepped.”

====


End file.
